


Apology

by TakeMeOut



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who RPF
Genre: F/M, Friends With Benefits, Friendship, Porn With Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2018-12-30 06:25:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12102714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TakeMeOut/pseuds/TakeMeOut
Summary: There was a day when nothing changed, and everything did.





	1. Chapter 1

She’s in a hot bath when the phone rings, easing the tension of a long week away from her shoulders. As her mobile blasts into life, she curses and lunges for the towel, drying her hands briefly before answering the phone without looking to see who it is. 

“Hello?” she answers, with a trace of curtness. 

The rich voice at the other end is slightly amused. “It’s Peter. Am I interrupting something?”

She snorts. “Hardly. I’m in the bath. I was thinking of having a wank, but you’re not interrupting me just yet.” He laughs, and she continues sharply. “Where the fuck have you been? I’d’ve thought you were dead, except I keep seeing you on TV.”

His remorse is genuine. “I’m sorry. I really am. I’ve hardly had time to piss, let alone pick up the phone.” She knows he means it. He’s too faithful a friend, too warm, too caring, to have gone silent for this long without a damn good reason. 

“I’ll let you off. Just this once. So - what’s going on with you? Where are you?”

“Well …” he begins to answer, but the doorbell goes. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. I’m sorry, Peter. Let me call you back.” She leaps out of the bath, bad-temperedly towels herself off and throws on some clothes. She flings open the front door, ready to give the visitor a piece of her mind, but Peter's there on the front step. He’s leaning against the door frame, legs crossed casually, loosely holding a bottle of wine in one hand and his mobile in the other. A small bag over one shoulder. It’s so utterly cliched that she erupts into a deep belly laugh despite herself, knowing he doesn’t need any encouragement. He already looks far too pleased with himself. 

She opens the door fully and gestures him in. “Come on then, you absolute arse.” His mouth quirks sideways, and he walks into the kitchen and rummages in a drawer for the corkscrew. 

He drinks red wine and talks enthusiastically in response to her questions, telling her about the series, about how they’ve fallen behind schedule, but he’s managed to get away for the weekend. She watches him: skinny jeans, Doc Martens, white band T-shirt. His arms, pale and wiry, rest on the worktop either side of him. Hair in slightly wild silver curls, and blue-grey eyes as intense as ever. He looks absolutely delectable, and when he flashes his warm grin at her, his eyes creasing affectionately, she feels a bolt of desire shoot down her belly. 

He asks about her work, her family, expresses concern at how tired she looks. They finish the bottle, start another one, and some time later find themselves sitting on the floor of the kitchen laughing hysterically about a shared, drunken memory they can only partially recall. 

She’s in the middle of a sentence when he leans forward and kisses her slowly. When she opens her mouth against him, he pushes back, his tongue deep in her mouth. For one so considered and thoughtful in his everyday life, he’s always uncharacteristically confident in this situation. He knows what he’s doing; knows what she wants and what she likes. Found it out early on, and used it to both their advantages. 

She slides her hand under his T-shirt, delighting in his warm skin. He mentioned a while ago about his new personal trainer, and she can see the results. He’s skinny as ever, but he’s sinewy and lightly muscled, and she pulls off his T-shirt to be able to touch more of him, her hands greedy. 

He pulls her to her feet and they stumble up the stairs, laughing idiotically. She pushes him back onto the bed and slowly climbs on top of him, feeling his hardness, and the heat underneath her when she sits astride him. She forces herself not to rush this, to savour this, but he’s already pulling her top over her head and peeling her bra aside to push the heels of his hands into the underside of her breasts. The pulse in her cunt is drumming now, and she can’t help but wrench his jeans down to his knees, too impatient to take them off completely. He holds himself for her as she sinks down onto him, his thickness stretching her deliciously, almost painfully. 

He’s big and heavy inside her, and she squeezes herself around him for a moment, pleasure sparking inside her already. She begins to thrust against him quickly, but after a minute or two he pauses her with long fingers, and lifts her off him to peel off the last of their clothes. Now it’s his turn to push her back against the mattress, suspending himself over her for a moment as he looks down at her. Her awareness contracts for a moment to his almost ridiculously intense gaze, before his hardness brushes softly against the top of her thigh, and he pushes inside her once again. Then they’re moving quickly, breath coming faster as he kisses her hard and gasps encouragement into her open mouth. She relishes the feeling of his body on hers, the weight of him pushing against her, bearing down inside her. 

She wraps her legs around his backside, rocking against his short hard thrusts, and comes with a deep groan, knowing how he loves to feel the accelerating pulses of her orgasm around him, her eyes clamped shut with pleasure. He waits until it’s died away, then he’s thrusting sharply with an urgent rhythm, breath coming in pants. He stills suddenly, his head thrown back, baring the neck she finds so beautiful, and she feels him coming inside her. He holds his breath until it’s over, his eyes narrowed and unfocused with absolute gratification. 

They fall asleep with him still inside her, a tangle of limbs inside a warm cocoon under the duvet. 

The next morning she wakes early enough that the pale dawn light is coming in horizontally through the uncurtained window. Peter’s sitting in a chair near the bed, wearing only his briefs. He’s produced a sketchpad and pencil from somewhere, and he’s drawing with the intensity he brings to most things he does. 

“Keep still,” he says warmly, and she lies quietly, watching his eyes flicker between her and the paper. He pads over to her when he’s finished, and shows her a beautiful sketch, the shadows reaching away from her body cross-hatched into fine points. 

He lies down facing her, and runs a hand gently down to her hipbone. Rests it there, as if in apology for his long silence. She taps her fingers over his, lightly, briefly, and rolls on top of him, biting his bottom lip and pulling the duvet over their heads.


	2. Chapter 2

The next time he rings, it’s two weeks later. She knows immediately that something’s bothering him; there’s an indefinable edge to his voice. A kind of tension. 

In answer to her question, though, he says he’s fine, and seems unwilling to elaborate. He’s too doggedly unselfish to offload on her without finding out how she is first, so she patiently answers his questions about how she’s been; she explains that her contract has finished and she has a little time to recuperate after a manic few months. 

And that’s Peter all over, she thinks. Too unselfish. Too uncertain of his place in the world, too questioning of his worth and his success. _Except in bed_ , an internal voice says. _He’s not uncertain then._ She scolds herself, and then he’s speaking again. 

“Do you fancy coming over to Cardiff for a couple of days, then? If you’re free?”

She doesn’t hesitate. “Sure. That’d be great.” She tries to find the right words, but they won’t come. “Are you OK?”

Peter sounds pleased she's coming, but there’s a background weariness to his voice. “Brilliant. Yeah. I’m fine. Honestly.” He breathes out audibly. “I’m looking forward to seeing you.” And she knows she’s going to have to wait until she sees him to find out what’s going on. 

\----------------------

She’s never been to the flat Peter uses when he’s filming in Cardiff, but his directions are clear and detailed, and she finds it without any trouble. The door flies open almost as soon as she knocks, and his face lights up with genuine pleasure. She greets him with their usual kiss on the cheek, but the moment the door shuts behind her, he pushes her against it and kisses her on the lips, then pulls himself back to see how she’ll react. 

She studies his face for a moment, but it’s inscrutable, his depthless eyes watching her intently to see what she wants. What she wants, it turns out, is to go to bed with him, so she kisses him back, hard. He pushes her against the door again, his body heavy against hers, his limbs forming insistent angles against the rough wood. 

This isn’t how they usually work. Though it could be; the word ‘should’ isn’t one they really use when they’re together, neither of them caring much about social conventions or the opinions of others. There’s never anything awkward, or complicated, or self-conscious about their friendship. It’s always been easy. Straightforward. Nonetheless, sex has always been an addendum to their friendship; a bonus whenever they're both single, not the main reason for seeing each other. 

Clothes are quickly shed, and she lets him set the pace this time, which turns out to be hard, verging on frantic. She comes quickly, and he follows almost immediately, sweat beading on his forehead. 

Afterwards, they lie shoulder to shoulder in companionable silence as they catch their breath. After a while, she rolls to face him, and scrapes her teeth across his bicep to attract his attention. 

“So. Are you going to tell me what’s up now?”

He slides an arm underneath her neck, and kisses her absent-mindedly on the top of her head. “Am I that obvious?”

She snorts. “You might as well have ‘there’s something wrong’ written across your forehead. You’re not exactly a closed book, Peter.”

He smiles at her briefly, a small smile, and raises his eyes to a mottled patch on the ceiling so she can’t see the sadness in them. “Sorry. That wasn’t why I asked if you wanted to come, you know.”

She swallows down her annoyance about the fact he’s always apologising, and raises her eyebrows at him, waiting. 

“It’s just … I don’t know. I don’t really know what I’m doing here any more.” He purses his lips, thinking. “It’s a privilege, this job. It’s my childhood dream come true.” He pauses, biting his bottom lip. 

“You’re grateful. That’s a given, for you. So what’s the but?”

He breathes out slowly. “It’s a factory, this show. The schedule’s relentless, and everyone’s tired all the time. I’m just not sure I can give it my best, any more, and I owe all these amazing people who work on it better than that. And it’s fucking everything else up, too. Not work-wise, obviously, but I hardly have time to maintain a friendship these days. Let alone anything else.”

“And yet you have friends.” She grins at him, and buries her face in his elbow for a second, her voice muffled against his pale, warm skin. “Some of them even have benefits.” He smiles back at her despite himself, and she goes on. 

“So you’re a perfectionist - that’s not such a bad thing. But if it’s time to call it a day, you need to decide that sooner rather than later. Leave on a high; you’ll regret it otherwise, knowing you.”

She watches him think for a while, and breaks the silence with a single question. “Do you still see yourself doing this in a year?” 

He pauses, his face serious. Eventually, he replies. “No.”

“Then I think you have your answer.” 

He nods, his eyes a little clearer, the tension beginning to leach from his shoulders. She examines his face for a second, then slides down underneath the covers, while he makes half-hearted noises of protest. Something about being an old man. 

“Like fuck you are, Capaldi.” She bites the skin just above his hipbone in punishment for his statement. He wraps his fingers in her hair and pulls in retaliation, just hard enough that it begins to sting, and heat begins to pool between her legs again. He always understands where the line between pain and pleasure is for her; understands perfectly, in fact. She’s realises she’s never really thought about that. 

She banishes the thought that perhaps there are more things about their friendship that she’s never really thought about, and slides back up his body to kiss him.


	3. Chapter 3

Back home, she lies on top of the crumpled sheets of her bed, and thinks about when it all started. They’d met through a mutual friend, got to know each other over the course of a few events they’d both been at, and before long they were friends in their own right. 

And then, one evening much later on, everything changed. It had started innocuously enough, with gin and wine and a takeaway pizza on her sofa. They’d talked about relationships that hadn’t worked out. About how long it’d been since they were last with anyone. And, laughing like overgrown teenagers, about sexual frustration, and how it’s a constant, nagging distraction. 

She’d made some joke about the condoms in her bedside drawer being covered in cobwebs, and Peter had thrown his head back and given a great shout of laughter - eyes crinkled to slits, revealing all his teeth - and it had came to her in a moment of sudden, ice-cold sobriety that she wanted to take him to bed. Peter. Her friend of three years, who’d never made a move in all that time. 

She recalls clearing her throat awkwardly, and it taking several attempts to say his name, to attract his attention to what she needed to say. She remembers how grateful she was that she was borderline drunk, giving her the artificial confidence to open her mouth and say it. And then after that - somehow, she simply can’t remember, though she remembers everything afterwards in high definition - they had an agreement that they’d try it. Friends, sleeping together. Not a relationship. Just friends. 

\-------------------------------

That first time. She’d cupped her hand to his cheek for a long minute, running one thumb over his lips as those arresting blue-grey eyes watched her. When she finally kissed him, it was like some kind of desperately-needed relief, and after a second of hesitancy she pushed her mouth again and again against those warm, thin lips, running her tongue over his teeth. She was, in her own words, as horny as fuck, and when he lifted her top and ghosted his palms up her ribcage to nudge against the sides of her breasts, an involuntary groan escaped her. 

She fell backwards on the sofa with him on top, kissing sloppily and uncontrollably, all tongues and teeth. Pulling his head closer with both hands to try to taste more of him; the feeling of his tongue on hers making her want even more. She wrapped her legs around his and, as he rubbed against her, she could feel how hard he was even through his jeans. The heat began to rise between her legs and she reluctantly caught hold of his belt to stop him. “I’m going to come before we’ve even got our kit off if you don’t watch it.”

Peter grinned delightedly in response. “Let’s slow down a bit.” He began to peel off her clothes piece by piece, running the flat of his hand over each new area of skin as it was revealed, as if he was committing it to memory. She forced herself to go slowly, to lie back and watch him undress her, but every time he touched her, her skin flickered slightly and she had to restrain herself.

She remembers how her head rolled back as he’d pushed gently inside her for the first time, how she made him stay still for a long moment while she savoured the feeling. It was impossible to hold back for long, though, and soon she was digging her heels into the back of his legs to push him in deeper, and she was over the edge. 

Even through the haze of her orgasm she’d heard him gasp breathlessly into her neck. “I can ... I can feel you coming.” He sounded astonished, and suddenly he threw his head back and she felt him release inside her before collapsing bonelessly down on top of her. 

He was the first to break the sweaty, breathless silence that had begun to lengthen threateningly. “Well. I think we can safely say that worked out OK.” And suddenly they were both laughing helplessly, holding on to each other as if for dear life. 

\-------------------------------

And yet, afterwards, nothing had really changed. He was still her solid, faithful friend, there to listen when she needed him, and hand her tissues when lovers broke her heart. They weren’t bastards; when one or both of them were attached, they’d stop sleeping together. That was the only rule, and it was one they took seriously. 

That was the day that nothing changed, and everything did.


	4. Chapter 4

She’s dozing in bed one rainy Sunday afternoon. Peter’s body is a warm presence beside her, and he’s tinkering on an acoustic guitar, frowning with the thoughtful, introspective look he’s had since he finished filming on the show for the last time. She wakes from an indistinct dream that tangles itself around his playing, to see him watching her. 

“What’s up?” 

He smiles, as he so often does, almost imperceptibly. He looks as if he’s about to speak, but then turns and puts his guitar down on the floor instead. 

Peter slides his long, clever fingers into the warm space between her thighs, and her legs move apart in invitation. He runs his fingers into her folds, lightly, lazily, and watches her face intently to measure every reaction. 

“You know ….” He tries again. “It's ... I don’t think it’s normal to know a friend’s body this well.”

Somewhere, her brain registers that this is an odd thing to say, but she puts her hand over his and moves against him, and it’s quickly forgotten. 

\----------------------

Later, they’re drinking tea at her kitchen table, when he puts his mug down hard enough to spill the drink. His jaw tenses in a way she’s never seen before, and he fixes his eyes on the table. 

“I’ve been thinking since we finished the series. About why I’m still single. And there's something I need to say.” He looks up and meets her eyes. “I think … I think all of my relationships have failed because the other person wasn’t you.” There’s a silence. The only sound is a fly buzzing erratically at the closed window, but she feels like the ceiling’s coming in. 

His words fall out over one another. “We’ve been so stupid. So completely blind. It’s all so obvious, and we’ve never been brave enough to look at it head on.” He gestures emphatically, shoulders raised, in the way she’s always suspected his Italian heritage is to blame for. “We’re not just friends any more. We’re much more than that. Much more.”

Panic swallows her whole, and she’s standing, horrified. “No. NO. This wasn’t what we agreed.” She snatches at her bag, and he grabs her arm. “Please, just listen to me. It’s too late - we have to deal with this. Talk about it.” His mouth is slack with desperation. “Please.”

She wrenches her arm away and lunges for the door. He speaks her name once before she’s out of the flat and down the street. 

\----------------------

She pounds the streets blindly in the rain, barely noticing how her shoes are filling with water. Her thoughts tumble over each other endlessly, but she walks for hours until she’s exhausted and cold, and she understands. Acknowledges that she’s scared of losing his friendship, scared to take it any further in case she sacrifices what she already has. And that whatever she decides now, their friendship is over. 

Her feet lead her to Peter’s flat, and he answers the door looking drawn. She stands there mutely for a minute, hair plastered flat to her head by the rain, and gives an almost imperceptible nod. “I’m sorry.”

His face relaxes visibly. “I’m sorry too.” He breathes out. “I’m an arse. I’ve been oblivious to this for so long. Deliberately, if I’m honest.”

“We’re both arses, then.” She smiles faintly through the rain still dripping from her hair. “We’ll try it, then. Two oblivious, apologetic arses together.” She wipes her fringe out of her eyes, and he stands aside to let her in.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic doesn't assume there's infidelity; it's more of an AU where everyone's unattached.


End file.
